I am a Benefit Support Manager for a large Registered Social Landlord. We are in the process of producing our own overpayment policy, regarding what action we will take regarding overpayments of Housing Benefit. If any other RSL's have already devised one and you are willing to send a copy of this to me, please let me know and I will contact you. Thank you.

We dont have one, but I'd be very interested to know more about this when you have received further information.. If you wouldnt mind.. x

We dont have a formal policy as such, but I am the sole person responsible for making the initial decison as to what action to take.

My line is that overpayments due to ending of the tenancy will be paid as will overpayments on account of the death of a tenant. Every other overpayment generally gets appealed unless there is a corresponding credit on the rent account

Even where there is a corresponding credit, if its clearly not recoverable from the RSL (eg where the overpayment arose due to changes in the claimants income) such overpayments will be appealed.

If the notice does not comply with R(H)6/06, I will consider appealing the decision as a tactic to help the tenant. This is useful if the tenant has not appealed and would otherwise be out of time

Our RSL doesn’t have an overpayment policy; however the Welfare Rights Section policy in respect to O/P is…

Landlords:
Responsibility will also be taken to ensure that overpayment recoveries from FLAIR Associations are legally recoverable and that the correct practices are adopted by the local authority…..

We usually find that the correct practices have not been adopted by the LA as they have just issued an invoice.

I tend to challenge almost all of the ones we are invoiced for here. Obviously if we have received rent after the end of a tenancy we will refund that, but we have started challenging overpayments where the tenant has abandoned the property and not informed us (so the tenancy is still running).

This seems to be controversial as a lot of councils consider that when a tenant has left a property and that is the cause of the overpayment they can always target the landlord. We think we have a pretty strong case that this is not so. In particular, the recent Comms Decision CH/4213/2007 seems to confirm that where a tenant has left the property consideration needs to be given to the landlord's knowledge of the circumstances, as to whether he could be expected to know about thte change and thus have a duty to report it.

Just read the Deputy Commissioners decision. He is of the opinion that overpayments pertaining to a period before the 2006 Regulations came into force are subject to the previous regulations on recoverability.

I would argue that the Deputy Commissioners opinion is obiter and that since there can be no recoverable overpayment until the necessary revisions or supersessions and outcome overpayment and recoverability decisions have been made, the relevant date is the date the decisons are made, and so the 2006 rules will apply.

I must admit Stainsby that I skimmed that part of the decision- I'm sure you're right. Thankfully I have never (yet) come across an overpayment that straddled the divide, as it were.

I was more interested in his interpretation of how the post-2006 rules are applied.

I would like to thank everyone for the contributions they have made to this post.